IT has been said that the desire to alleviate pain is as old as man, but its fulfillment had long to wait. The discovery of the use of anesthetics therefore followed a long period of seeking and was, as Sir William Osler expressed it, the "greatest single gift ever made to suffering humanity." This statement enhances the value of a great discovery, the application of which has caused the mitigation of suffering during operations for alleviation and cure of diseases that hamper and torture the human race. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "The extremity of suffering was steeped in the water of oblivion, and the deepest furrow in the knotted brow of pain has been smoothed away forever." This vision of 1846, fulfilled today perhaps beyond Dr. Holmes' highest hope, will, we trust, be fulfilled in the future beyond our present visioning. What anesthesia has meant to surgery is vividly described by Dr. Hugh Young in the address he gave at the unveiling of the monument to Dr. Crawford Long: Surgery was unshackled, physicians returned to the operating table, the shrieks of the torture chamber ceased, and the operating amphitheatre became a place of quiet, scientific endeavor to master the ravages of disease with the humane use of the knife. Conditions heretofore hopeless were brought under the sway of surgery; surgeons rapidly acquired a daring, a dexterity, and exquisite skill that has resulted in the most amazing progress witnessed in any art.